Chapter 1206: Daoist Magic of Time!
Meng Hao could see the black-robed man, but no one else could. He seemed lonely, with the supreme air of a Paragon, and yet he radiated a boundless murderous aura as he walked past the Song Clan Patriarch and headed out toward the starry sky.
Panting anxiously, Meng Hao completely forgot about the matter of settling accounts. He instantly flashed through the air to follow the black-robed man.
In the Windswept Realm, he had personally watched this man walked out into the void and then vanish. He would never have been able to imagine that he would actually… see him again here.
The emaciated old man frowned. He hadn’t seen anything unusual at all; Meng Hao’s bizarre reaction caused his eyes to narrow.
“Fellow Daoist Meng….” the old man said.
Almost at the same time, Meng Hao cried out, “Senior, wait for me!” He kept his eyes fixed on the black-robed man, who was strolling off into the distance at incredible speed. Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, the black-robed man paused and then slowly turned his head to glance casually at Meng Hao.
That single glance caused Meng Hao’s mind to tremble as if lightning were striking it. It didn’t matter that he was an Allheaven Dao Immortal, as of that moment, his entire consciousness felt as if it were sinking into boundless slaughter.
He trembled violently, and blood sprayed out of his mouth. It felt as if some indescribable power were pounding through his mind, simultaneously… wiping away all his memories of the black-robed man!
The rumbling wasn’t just affecting Meng Hao. The emaciated old man also started trembling. That was because in the instant that the black-robed man had turned around, he was also able to see him!
That single glance caused blood to spray out of the old man’s mouth, and his Essence aura to grow unstable. His expression was one of shock before it suddenly went blank. His memories of how he had been injured just now, as well as the sight of the black-robed man, were instantly wiped away.
It wasn’t just him, it was also the other Dao Realm Patriarch on the planetoid. When the black-robed man turned and became visible, they had caught sight of him. However, his single glance sent their minds spinning, caused them to cough up blood, and made them feel like they were about to explode. It was as if a huge hand were forcibly wiping away everything about the man that existed in their minds.
The same thing happened to the Song Clan’s most powerful Patriarch, the one on Planet North Reed itself, who had been watching Meng Hao the entire time. Meng Hao’s bizarre behavior had startled him, and when the black-robed man turned around, it caused the Dao Realm Patriarch to cough up several mouthfuls of blood. His memories were also wiped away, no matter what he did to fight back. It was like he was so weak that he couldn’t stand up to a single blow.
All of these things take some time to describe, but actually happened in a brief moment. The ordinary clan members’ memories were not wiped away because they had never laid eyes on the black-robed man in the first place.
However, they saw Meng Hao and the Patriarchs coughing up blood, which, coupled with the miserable shrieks that echoed from their mouths, made the scene completely bizarre. All of the surrounding Song Clan cultivators gasped.
Meng Hao was the first to regain his senses. His eyes were completely bloodshot as the invisible hand threatened to wipe away his memories of the black-robed man. Apparently, this gaze embodied a paramount Daoist magic. The black-robed man did not wish memories of him to exist in anyone’s minds. To ensure that no trace of him was remembered by anyone, he would wipe their minds clean.
However, in the moment that Meng Hao’s memories were about to be wiped away, he roared, and azure light suddenly exploded out of him. The power of an Allheaven Dao Immortal surged out, and the drop of Paragon’s blood inside of him seethed. His eyes shone with wild light, and he gritted his teeth as he produced his fourth Nirvana Fruit, then pushed it down into his forehead.
“My memories belong to me for all eternity! If I want them wiped out, that’s my decision. Other people… don’t have the right or the qualifications to touch my memories!”
He continued to cough up blood as the Nirvana Fruit melted down into him. It caused the azure light to become even more radiant and, combined with the Paragon’s blood, made Meng Hao just barely capable of resisting the enormous hand, which he shoved out of his mind.
RUMBLE!
He staggered backward, coughing up another mouthful of blood, but completely clear-headed. He lifted his head up to find the black-robed man looking at him with a surprised expression.
The black-robed man stared at him for a moment, then nodded, as if he approved of Meng Hao’s existence. Then he turned and began to walk off into the distance.
Meng Hao took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and flew after him. He could sense that this man harbored no malice. That gaze from earlier could shake Heaven and Earth, but in actuality… it was apparently some sort of test.
Of those he tested, only those who managed to maintain their memories of him could qualify… to follow him off into the distance.
After a long moment, Meng Hao and the black-robed man were gone, and the emaciated old man from the Song Clan regained his senses, as did the other two Patriarchs.
They quickly communicated with each other via divine sense, and came to the realization that none of them had any memories regarding what had just happened. They only remembered Meng Hao acting strangely.
However, these were Dao Realm experts. The black-robed man might have taken action to wipe away their memories, but he didn’t hide that fact. After the three of them considered what had happened, they quickly reached a conclusion.
“We saw some being that we should not have seen….”
“That terrifying entity erased whatever it was that we saw….”
After questioning some of the surrounding disciples, the three Song Clan Dao Realm Patriarchs’ hearts sank, and their fear of Meng Hao increased.
From the various clues they had gathered, they came to the conclusion that whatever being it was that had erased their memories must also have some connection to Meng Hao. After all, Meng Hao had caught sight of the man before they had. Therefore… what was written between the lines was that Meng Hao knew that terrifying entity!
“Pass orders down that no members of the Song Clan are to have anything to do with Meng Hao…. He harbors too many terrifying secrets, secrets… that we should not know anything about!” Having made their decision, the three Song Clan Patriarchs officially sent their orders out. As for Song Luoshen, who had dared to provoke Meng Hao, the three Patriarchs actually didn’t rebuke him at all. However, the way they ignored him left him feeling very uneasy.
Song Luodan had been watching from off in the distance. He looked thoughtfully in the direction Meng Hao had headed, and realized… that it was the planetoid controlled by the Wang Clan.
Out in the starry sky, the black-robed man didn’t take very long strides, and yet every step was like a teleportation. Meng Hao drew on the full power of his cultivation base, and yet was quickly falling behind.
Seeing that he couldn’t catch up, he didn’t allow himself to get nervous. Instead, he keyed in on the movement of the man’s legs. As he watched, he was able to detect that there was a certain cadence to the way he walked. Meng Hao began to imitate it, lifting his feet up and placing them down in a certain way.
Although he wasn’t able to tell, the way he was imitating the man caused his own figure to pulse between being blurry and being clear. Every step he took caused the starry sky to seemingly shrink. When his foot landed, the starry sky would return to normal.
Without even realizing it, he was actually matching his steps to the black-robed man’s, even catching up. Every time the man lifted his foot up, so did Meng Hao. Every time he stepped down, so did Meng Hao.
Time passed, although Meng Hao wasn’t sure how much. On the one hand, it seemed like a moment, but on the other hand, it seemed endless. He was lost in the special cadence of walking, step after step….
Suddenly, the black-robed man stopped walking, and Meng Hao shivered as he awakened from his reverie. He looked around to find that he was still in the vicinity of Planet North Reed, although he had traveled from one of the smaller planetoids to another.
Although the planetoids were some distance away from each other, they weren’t that far. In fact, you could even reach from one to another with divine sense. Considering the level of Meng Hao’s cultivation base, it would only take a few breaths of time to go from one to another.
But for some reason, he felt as if a long time had just passed, which would seem to indicate that he had traveled for a very long distance. However, the situation seemed to be the exact opposite, which left Meng Hao feeling as if something strange was going on.
By now, he was sure that the state he had been in just now and that special way of walking was definitely some strange Daoist magic, and an unusual one at that. However, the facts of the matter made Meng Hao feel as if… he had overestimated the walking technique.
He couldn’t say that he was disappointed, but he did sigh inwardly. At this point he turned to look back in the direction of the Song Clan’s planetoid, and suddenly, he began to shake. His eyes went wide with disbelief and shock.
His whole body shook; it was as if all of the amazing and shocking things he had experienced in his entire life put together weren’t nearly as stunning as what he was seeing now….
He had seen many astonishing things in his years, but as of this moment, what he was seeing… was truly unbelievable!
His mind felt as if it were being struck by a million lightning bolts. His jaw dropped, and he stared in the direction of the Song Clan’s planetoid as the flicker of teleportation could be seen and a person emerged from the teleportation portal.
He was handsome and had the air of a scholar. He even seemed to glow with azure light. He watched this scholar be handed a bag of holding by the Song Clan cultivators, and then saw the young man cry out in a thunderous voice.
“Song Luodan, get out here!” What he was seeing was almost like a vision… of himself!!
He watched himself move forward and grab Song Luoshen. He saw the emaciated man make his appearance, and then saw the black-robed man appear. He saw the test administered, then saw the black-robed man strolling out into the starry sky. Then… he saw himself following, all the way… until the other black-robed man and the other Meng Hao superimposed with their real selves.
Meng Hao was shaking, and great waves of shock roared through his head.
“That walking technique wasn’t too slow,” he murmured. “It was too fast! So fast… that it can cause you to travel through time…. I can’t believe that I actually walked backward… for one incense stick’s worth of time!” The bizarreness of the Daoist magic caused his mind to rumble with sounds like thunder.
After a long moment passed, Meng Hao turned to look at the black-robed man, who was now looking down toward an area down below, situated between a mountain and a river.
Meng Hao’s heart was gripped with shock as he also looked down at the foot of that mountain, where there was a bamboo forest. Inside the bamboo forest was a vulgar-looking old man, sitting there cross-legged.
Directly in front of the old man was a young man, who happened to be none other than Wang Mu.